Parents are essential in the education of a child, particularly in the social education, and discipline is only a very small part of the problem (but a problem none the less).

Presenting a dysfunctional relationship to children is the most effective may for any parent to distort how a child will relate to the other gender in the future.

Teachers can pick which students come from homes with dysfunctional parents very quickly. If a child has never learnt how to relate to the other gender, they will never know how to relate and inappropriate behavior should be expected (aggressive, defensive, oppositional etc).

Jails are full of adults who were raised poorly and were never taught how to relate to people appropriately (starting with authority/police)

Being able to relate to people does not depend on the sexual orientation of your parents but on the way they treat you. It matters not if you have two mothers/fathers or a traditional mother&father family if none of the parenting bodies is attentive to you, your concerns, worries fears, etc.
My impression is that gay people tend to be more sensitive and caring about one's feelings so a child raised in a homosexual household would probably turn out to be e more sensitive and emphatic adult and a more tolerant as well.
So to sum it up, what matters is not the gender but the character of the people that raise the child.

Wow! You really must be mad, or completely stupid, if you really believe gays are brighter than heterosexuals. Hence they would be better parents than "average" parents as you put it... Who also happen to be the same ilk of "ignorant and intelectually challenged, or religious nutcases (by that I supoose you mean any person of faith), having the majority of brats". Talk about bigotry and discrimination!

Watching religions trying to impose their backward intolerant agenda on me, and the indisputable fact that there seem to be more children surviving at the bottom of the social and intellectual food chain, when those at the top are either not having kids, (or keeping them to manageable numbers) is frightening.

In the UK every politician wrings his/her hands when talking about social inequality and lack of upward mobility, disadvantaged this, lack of opportunity that ad nauseum.

No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room – most of these people are so thick, it doesn’t matter what opportunity you give them, they are doomed to have the lives they have, and lots of even thicker kids to keep them company.

Now, when you look at the gay community, who seem to be conspicuously visible due to their intelligence and talent – of course it’s a tragedy they are not having children.

That’s if you accept being gay is nothing to get excited about. Which you are less likely to do so if you are religious or ignorant.

I can’t help but feel sadness for those who put their trust in a mythical concept such as a god, in an absolute way. They must have a screw loose somewhere.

Seriously, religious madcaps are far better than gays who are devoid of any sense of discipline. Those who want to experience full freedom must first learn to understand oneself and creation around. Gays seem to defy the basis of creation by shutting out all logic when it is screaming from all around. You dont need religion to answer that, just a little bit of control on oneself. There you go whining ........

And why is that? Really if gays were meant to have children perhaps they would be physically able to with each other, it really defies all logic that suddenly gays are demanding the right to have children, if they want children so bad why did they choose to take someone from the same sex as their partner? Homosexuality is the antithesis of procreation, and the notion that gays are somehow more talented and intelligent then heterosexuals is based on no fact or reason whatsoever, just a load of empty far left rhetoric.

I agree on one sense, in that the process of natural election should mean that a gay person, simply from the biological fact that humans require a person of the opposite sex as a partner to have children, should ultimately remove himself or herself from the gene pool.

My issue is that being able to support one’s offspring, provide food, a roof over their heads etc., is no longer a requirement to having kids.

Where as once, the ability to have children who survived required the above, it is no longer the case – the state will provide for you.

In some cases, it is a method of survival to have children, since rather than be a burden, they become a source of income – which means the dumbest and least able to contribute to society are those who seem to be having rather a lot of children.

Middle class successful tax paying people find it a challenge to afford to have them.

As a consequence, society is adopting an upside down golf-tee shaped distribution of usefulness in terms of its people.

So, to expect these “waste of space human bodies” to increasingly challenge the educational system’s ability to shovel information into their limited minds.

Back to the gay segment of society, is appears the distribution usefulness is the reverse of today’s society.

Or put it this way – what proportion of the gay community is collecting benefits and a sponge on the rest of us?

As unpalatable as it may seem to religious nutcases, or homophobic regressive thugs – the gay contribute rather a lot to the world.

It is just sad that they are not passing their abilities on to a new generation.

Homosexuality entwines with the development of civilization in sub-stream. It persist in human history no matter mainstream jugulate it or treat it with tolerance. Since it's a material being of human instinct, it's time for the public to show respect as the way to discuss some critical dillemas.

All of which begs the question - why is there so little high quality research carried out on issues that really matter? We know more about medieval crop rotation systems in lower Bavaria than we do about the effect on children of having gay or straight parents.

You're absolutely right - it was only when the natural order of racially-segregated marriages was broken that some imaginative yet depraved people began thinking of having sex with someone of their own gender.

Doesnt matter, people will still have sex with them (it) and (dont hold your breath) marry them! Shocking!!! Well, in 20 years time will not be that shocking. 50 years ago most people find same sex marriage shocking. Not now. Obama even supports it. He thinks it is a natural extension of the American constititution. He didnt seem to consider the moral aspect. Since he is a Christian, doesnt seem to consider what the Bible says too. Sad.

America is getting despised in this part of the world not least because America allows what most people here finds to be immoral.

It's a well-recognised rhetorical tool which can be used correctly, but more often than not isn't. You're basically saying that A (same sex marriage) will lead to Z (which we'll call inter-species union, avoiding more colourful terms).
The problem is that there's no factually-proven mechanism by which A will lead to Z, just an alarmist "what-if?". Nor is there any serious movement in favour of Z, nor any reason to believe that the proponents of A also believe in permitting Z, nor that permitting A will lead to a growth in support for Z. Put in real terms, it's simply the case that not many people want to marry a dog. (Far fewer, I'd wager, than want to marry another man or woman, before you make that point.) Another topical slippery-slope argument is that once you legalise homosexual sex, its incidence will climb until everyone is doing it. Hopefully I don't need to point out to you quite how ridiculous that sounds.
(By contrast, the proposition "emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will - eventually - cause the polar ice-caps to melt" is a fairly logically sound slippery slope, in the sense that a mechanism by which A can lead to Z is known.)
I've made the point elsewhere that the modern gay rights movement smartly/sensibly dissociates itself from the more social changes that some activists have made. Thus there's no agitation by LGBT groups for marriages involving more than two partners, or for marriages with minors, etc. All this makes their argument easier to swallow for most people - indeed, over here in the UK, the Conservative Prime Minister is actually in favour of gay marriage. At heart it's a fairly conservative proposition, really - people *wanting* to commit to one another, in sickness and in health and so on, rather than 'enjoying' the 'benefits' (about which I am dubious) of remaining unmarried because of state diktat.

False analogy, marriage should only be allowed if two parties can give informed consent. Indonesia is a model to the world for human rights of course but you cant expect a country like America to be as good.

"marriage should only be allowed if two parties can give informed consent"

50 or 100 years ago most people say:

"Marriage is between a man and a woman"

50 years from now people who want to justify their actions will say

"Marriage is between a human and anyone/anything else as long as it doesnt harm anyone"

What stop anyone from marrying an animal? The law? The above rule PermExpat suggested? Humans can change rules and laws. If your neighbor decided to marry/have sex with an animal and he's powerful enough to make Congress to change the law, what can anyone do? He's within the law and he's not harming anyone since he has sex so gently that animal rights campaigner have no objections. What can stop him?

When it comes to moral behavior, it has to be something more solid than human made laws. If not, anything goes as long as we declare the 2 mantras of consent and no harm.

You seem to spend some effort finding out where I come from. What's your intention?

I dont see why you need a proven transmission mechanism before something happen. If I want to marry an animal now, why do I need to convince myself that there's such a mechanism? I will just go to international waters, get someone to officiate and make sure the animal is looking at me straight in the eye when I make my vow.

"No agitation by LGBT groups for marriages involving more than two partners, or for marriages with minors, etc."

Thats the situation now. What stop people from agitating for that?

"people *wanting* to commit to one another"

What if 3 people *want* to be in one union?
What if a minor *want* to marry her grandpa (and grandpa agree, her parents too)
What if an adult *want* to marry an animal rather than
"'enjoying' the 'benefits' (about which I am dubious) of remaining unmarried because of state diktat"

That's not what I mean by "proven transmission mechanism" within the concept of the slippery slope. You don't need to convince *yourself* that there is a physical or legal mechanism by which you can, say, marry an animal or whereby carbon emitted into the atmosphere causes warming; you need to be able to produce a logically defensible process by which A leads to Z.

The animal analogy is false and an example of an incorrect slippery slope not because it *couldn't* happen - I'll happily concede that it could, and some tiny sliver of people might indeed want that right - but that there's no logical connection between permitting gay marriage and permitting inter-species marriage. I mean, if you're looking at a logical jumping-off point for all advocates for minority rights regarding marriage, surely it's marriage itself, rather than a rainbow-flavoured sub-type?

(To test the falseness, flip it around: it's silly, but were marriage between humans and animals of the opposite sex permitted, why does that logically mean that marriage between two men or two women should follow?)

Now as I said above, I'll happily concede that there are probably a handful of people who'd like to marry a pig, or chicken, or kangaroo. (There are a few well-publicised stories knocking around about people who fall in love with inanimate objects, too.) By contrast, there are millions of gay and lesbian people around the world, and I can't help but feel that trying to equate two groups of wildly differing size like this is often a way of dog-whistling "homosexuality is a bit like bestiality, eww" at people without saying as much (although some are happy to do exactly that, in public).

You asked what stops people agitating for other kinds of 'minority marriage'. The answer, of course, is nothing. But tell me honestly, and without resorting to that last refuge of the intellectually cornered, the 'what-if', how many people could really be expected to agitate for the right to marry their grandparent or their horse. A tiny number. (I'll leave out polygamy because it's not only legal within certain present-day legal and religious systems, it has a lot of historical form too. It still wouldn't get much support in modern, Western states though.)

A further point on "proven transmission mechanism", which I forgot to go back and insert (and TE's comments editor removes carriage returns, as I found to my cost yesterday!).

If we accept the science of climate change for the sake of argument, it's clear that the fact CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere, and the fact that its concentration in the atmosphere is rising, are both essential logical preconditions for atmospheric warming. Take either of them away and you get no warming.

Put a simpler way: there's no logical process by which you can make an omlette without cracking the eggs into the pan.

By contrast, gay marriage isn't an essential logical precondition to inter-species, incestuous, or polygamous marriage. That's what my 'flip the order' example was trying to show.

It's ironic that comments by opponents of gay parenthood/adoption refer to 'common sense', when too many of them believe that homosexuality is the result of a talking snake tricking a woman and spoiling god's perfectly heterosexual creation by bringing sin into it!

Growing up with same-sex parents may not be the ideal scenario, but parents' orientation is only one of many factors that affects the childhood experience. Children are certainly worse-off if they have to grow up with closeted/persecuted homosexual parents.

Personally, I think growing up with sisters can be a far more traumatic experience than growing up with same-sex parents.

It is good for a child to have good parents instead of bad parents or no parents. Whether parents are gay, straight, black, white, rich, poor, single, married or whatever is neither here nor there as long as they are good.

What is controversial is someone with an religious agenda twisting research to prove the point he already had in mind in respect of a particular group.

The word is not "good" but "better". The social conservatives want to impose their mores and choices on the rest of us through the force of law. And to make the force of law more palatable, they keep coming up with flawed "research". Why?

Well, yeah, the study shows two things, then:
1) broken families are bad for children;
2) gays, which (unsuccessfully) pretend to be straight may lead to a broken family.

The conclusion? Eh... May be let the gays to be what they are?

All such studies will be flowed by definition. Even nowadays, any gay couple has to jump through a lot of hoops to be allowed to raise a child, and they are perfectly aware about this from very beginning. Gays, in general, can't just have a child - they need to adopt one, go through medical procedures or find a "donor". People with such determination will certainly be better parents than an average heterosexual couple, which is often gifted with a child just due to an accident.

Why the heck should we think about consequences of anything that we do? Ofcourse kids should be able to grow up with two fathers, thats just right nowadays when we do not even want to hear the possible negative consequences of all the wrong choices we are making.

On another note, it should be a human right for a child not to be forced by politics to have two dads or two mothers. The child afterall has no choice, and we are offering no protection at all.

Perhaps since our society is also offering selective surgery for transexuals we should allow selective surgery for everyone who wants to remove or change important limbs. Perhaps let people operate their ears and eyes away and live handicapped on welfare the rest of their lives?

Sounds like a great idea in this day and age of letting everyone get as they want without thinking about common sense or consequences.

So we can just as well forget about these children and offer them no protection at all against our own idiocy.

The children of (straight or gay) alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals, child abusers, child molestors, parents who hate each other, and parents who are financially irresponsible need more "protection" than the universe of children with gay parents. What test do straight people have to pass to have kids? Oh right, there isn't one.

Thank you, Bugs10 for expressing my exact thoughts. I know too many children who are ignored, neglected, used, live in miserable households (none are gay), and have no hope for the future because their parents are too wrapped up in their own lives to bother to pay attention.

Parenting is a skill that can be learned by anyone in any combination of individuals. Many parents take on the responsibility of raising a child only to find the task overwhelming and undesirable. Where is it written that having parents of the same sex who are committed to a child's well being and stays the course is unfit? I know lots of unfit parents (My husband and I raised two children and you see all kinds in the school system) who are heterosexual married or single fathers and mothers who are truly unfit parents and nothing is ever done about it. Truthfully, no study is required.

i get the feeling that if a study was done and peer reviewed and verified that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that homosexuality was NOT an in-born trait; and further if it was shown, again beyond a reasonable doubt that the homosexual lifestyle was not conducive to good mental health; and then if God himself came down to earth and made it clear that he did indeed exist and that homosexuality was a sin; you would claim the following:
a. the study proving homosexuality not be an in-born trait used erroneous methodology and was tainted in a myriad of 'unexplainable ways'
b. those claiming the homosexual lifestyle to be adverse to mental health must themselves be insane
c. God's coming down to earth was a hallucination and those people who saw him were high on acid.

It seems that no matter of logic will convince some people that maybe, just maybe, homosexuality is wrong and ill conceived. that it is possible that homosexual households are not the best for children. that it might just be possible that homosexual behavior may not be the best mental state.

It appears that in some corners of this world there is a full on drive to convince everyone to accept homosexuality; to convince everyone that the homosexual way is the right way.

This article proves my point. If you knew anything about 'soft' science research, you would understand that for statistical significance, you need a large enough pool to draw from. If I interview 2 blonde haired white women and find them to be 'dumb', i would be wrong to conclude that all blonde haired white women are dumb. Lacking a sufficient pool, the researcher must then compose a pool of 'the most likely candidates' for study.

Dude, issues bubbling to the surface today? But in any case, I'd say that we are extreme unlikely to have to think about any of those three eventualities coming about. It would be nice if everybody took at least a live-and-let-live attitude to homosexuality, but Nobody thinks that homosexuality is the "right" way, except for themselves and perhaps for people they know who are pretending to be straight.

mahagwa - but all the evidence points to the fact that homosexuality IS an inborn trait and IS NOT "adverse to mental health", yet it appears people like yourself are on a full on drive to convince everyone to reject homosexuality; to convince everyone that the homosexual way is the wrong way.

Also, your blonde analogy is wrong. A better way of describing this study would be that you pick two blondes, neither of who have any educational qualifications, and declare blondes as dumb. Then to prove your point you expand your pool of likely candidates to include women from a period when women were not allowed to go to school.

Here is a little thought experiment for you: If homosexuality is strictly a matter of choice, why would anybody choose it?

Especially if you are in a society where being homosexual can get you stigmatized (or even killed), what possible motivation do you have for making that choice? And yet, there are homosexuals in every culture. Why?

No. There has been as much research reporting that homosexual behavior is not genetic as supposed research supporting it. A primary reason for people choosing a homosexual lifestyle includes, say, a boy never having acceptance from dad and so he seeks out a replacement of a good and loving relationship with one where he inadvertently is taken advantage of and experimented with.

well, that quoted lesbian households study has exactly the same methodological flaws, but in opposite direction (i.e., they selected the most motivated, highest educated couples with high SESs). however, only a few scholars have criticized that, probably because the results were in line with mainstream opinion...

I agree with you that the lesbian favorable study cannot be used to prove that gay parents in general are good parents, but it can be used to prove that high-educated, well-off lesbian couples are good parents.
However, the problem with the new study is that it uses an unclear determination of "homosexual", one same-sex encounter doesn't make a person gay, ESPECIALLY in women's case. How many young girls have same-sex experiences during college and then marry men?-Many, including myself. Are we all "gay parents"?? According to the author, because I've had one homosexual experience when I was 19, out of curiosity, I'll be forever a "gay parent"!!!! LMAO! Nonsense!

Gay marriages are good for childredn? You have to take into account that the potential same-sex couples, who adopted children have bee VERY carefully screened. That means, their average income, education etc is above average. The influence of these factors are essential in our modern society.
Before any other comparison the effect of these factors must be very carefully eliminated.

I have to wonder if it matters at all, though-- there are more abusive heterosexual parent couples in the world than there are homosexual couples, parent or otherwise.
If we're gonna start restricting parenthood based on who is abusive, then humanity as a whole rather fails.

"There are more abusive heteresexual parents...than homosexual couples".
Sure, it is because there are, generally more heterosexual couples than homosexual ones.
What I wanted to say is, that the right comparison between same- and heterosex- cluples cannot be flawed in any respect. As vranka pointed out, "they selected the most motivated, highest educated couples with high SESs". Then, when you compare same sex- marriage of two university professors with hetero-couple with low income and education, then, of course you can get what you wish....

However the roles that homosexual couples hold are very different. Can you imagine having 20+ sexual partners in a year and having a teenage child think that was the ideal situation to be in (everything a parent does is ideal in the eyes of their child).

Divorce rates for heterosexuals is extremely high, what could give a person the idea that it would be lower for homosexual couples?

I believe that the argument of "think of the children" would be much better if we educated everyone about what good parenting is, not just same sex couples (as a high school teacher its pretty clear which parents were not ready to be parents).

However the roles that homosexual couples hold are very different. Can you imagine having 20+ sexual partners in a year and having a teenage child think that was the ideal situation to be in (everything a parent does is ideal in the eyes of their child).

Divorce rates for heterosexuals is extremely high, what could give a person the idea that it would be lower for homosexual couples?

I believe that the argument of "think of the children" would be much better if we educated everyone about what good parenting is, not just same sex couples (as a high school teacher its pretty clear which parents were not ready to be parents).

There are a lot of people who need to take a good look at their parenting.
My concern is not the quality of same sex couples as parents, but the socialisation of the child (and yes I share that concern with some heterosexual couples)

Dear Economist
Your foundation is based on drifting human ideologies. You debate about solutions for ever evolving human weaknesses. In that, you are doing a commendable job. But then, you can't do anything else.

I propose that we establish a reproductive license. Anyone who does not have a license cannot be a parent in any way. In order to get a license, you must undergo genetic testing for defects, psychological screening for potential mental issues, a background check, and so on and so forth.

These kinds of studies are designed to be ammunition for thumping a stump, dinner table or Bible. Learning something real or useful is not the point.

Reminds me of the "study," federally funded mind you under BushII, to see if prayer helped to heal the sick. The "academics" doing the study announced, before peer review, that even if people didn't know they were being prayed for, they did better than a control group. The "results" were all over the news. Peer review's conclusion: the study was too flawed to draw any conclusions, and the statistical methods were unusual, at best. Doing the numbers the way they were normally done for studies like that produced no statistically significant results, but in fact showed that sick people who knew somebody was praying for them did slightly worse than the control group.

I think the peer review made it as far as a blog on DIA. Darned liberal media.

This study is completely flawed. One same sex encounter doesn't make a person gay. Plus, until now, discrimination, prejudice and illegality really discouraged people to have same-sex families. The ones who had it anyway must have struggled a lot. From now on, things should be easier at least in liberal cities.
We need more and better studies.

Ok here we go Economist. Your comments policy states "no homophobic" comments. I fully agree with the studies conclusions. Furthermore, I fully support, based on logic, commonsense, and experience, that presumably heterosexual children should NEVER be subjected to a homosexual household. Is being pro-child the same as being "homophobic" in your moderator's eyes? We'll find out.

"I fully support, based on logic, commonsense, and experience, that presumably heterosexual children should NEVER be subjected to a homosexual household."

What logic, what common sense, and what experience?

I don't really see much logic in it. A heterosexual child isn't having sex with their parents except in the most dysfunctional families (and this is, IIRC, considered a crime in all fifty states regardless). Nevermind that you can't really begin to tell what a child's sexuality is until puberty, and even then the time of puberty is a confusing, arduous time which is best eased through having loving, understanding, and accepting parents. So it's not really relevant what the parents' sexuality is.
I don't really see any common sense in your argument, either, and you should explain your "experience"; plenty of homosexual children grew up amongst heterosexual households, and yet became well adjusted and productive members of society. Or perhaps you're arguing that heterosexual children are inferior to homosexual children, unable to accept the love of their parents with differing sexuality than there own where homosexual children can? But THAT violates common sense.

What does matter is what the parents can provide to the child, emotionally and financially. And aside from this particular study which used extremely unscientific methods that intentionally biased he results, studies have shown that homosexual parents who adopt children tend to be good parents, at least as good as heterosexual couples.

Explain to me how, based on your logic, an alcoholic sexually abusive male and neglectful drug-addicted female, can possibly be better parents than two men or two women who would raise the child in a loving nurturing environment?